Dantius

Originally Posted By: Null set and match —Alorael, who thinks Shylock comes across as somewhat less overwhelmingly evil. He has less flimsy reasons for what he does and doesn't, you know, try to kill everyone. So being totally screwed over by protesting an unfair tax, and then having all your wealth and prestige stripped from you due to an irrational hatred of your religion, is somehow not justification for revenge against those who wronged you? In Julius Caesar, Brutus murders Caesar and throws Rome into a civil war killing thousands because he's afraid Caesar might seize power, and yet Brutus is supposed to be the hero of that play. So why Barabas, who has much better reasons for his actions and a much lower body count, considered "overwhelmingly evil"?

Originally Posted By: One for the trolls —Alorael, who doesn't think The Jew of Malta makes for a good example of a heroic Jew. Barabas is more of a villain as protagonist in the vein of Faustus. He may have humanizing qualities, but he's undoubtedly a bad guy who nobody wants to invite to dinner. As opposed to Shylock, who was literally just a pastiche of nothing but negative Jewish stereotypes? Remember that this is the 1590's, and by the standards of that time, even a protagonist-villain is a huge step up from "racist caricatured villain".

Also, I could see it being argued that the only reason that Mephistopheles even gave Faustus the amount of power he did was because he knew he'd end up spending it on childish pranks and impressing his friends/inferiors with his power, instead of, say, world domination or the institution of a theocracy. He certainly does experience a fairly rapid change in motives at about the time of the deal- he goes from initially even wanting to protect Germany and expel the Spanish from the Netherlands to stealing the Pope's wine and food.

Are you kidding? If I was an invisible wizard, the first thing I'd think of doing is griefing the Pope for the hell of it. Well, probably not the first thing. But I would definitely do it at some point! And isn't the Jew of Malta basically the precursor to The Merchant of Venice, but with a less anti-Semitic bent (isn't the titular character the hero as opposed to the villain?)? That was probably my least favorite Shakespeare at any rate. Haven't tried Tamburlaine, but that'll be next. Thanks for the recommendation!

The Tragicall Historie of the Life and Death of Doctor Faustus by Christopher Marlowe, or just Doctor Faustus for short. It's pretty interesting, and it's one of the few books where the author is more interesting that the badass main character. While Marlowe wasn't a demonic wizard, he was pretty much what Shakespeare would have been like, if you gave him a PhD and had him be a government superspy against Catholics in his spare time, which is a recored only Ian Fleming could beat. Apparently British secret service agents must also be qualified literary geniuses- who knew?

Originally Posted By: radix malorum est cupiditas And who says that I can't get into banfights over you all being white devils? I was reading an unintentionally hilarious account written by a Chinese man in the late 1800's about a discussion he had with another Chinese about travelling to the "land of wizards" (aka America), and how the "white wizards" were able to accomplish powerful magic with what was just steam power. So apparently 19th century America was a land populated entirely by Gandalf clones and Theodore Roosevelt. Sounds awesome.

Originally Posted By: Sarachim Mariona help me, you guys have made me go and cite sources: http://www.spiderwebforums.com/forum/ubb...true#Post192240 Quote: "Quera is a walled town of moderate size (several hundred people)." Quera is one of the largest settlements on its island, and sufficiently noteworthy that it appears on a map of the world. The same is true of Riole, which was only slightly bigger. We haven't seen anything close to a city of 100,000 yet, and if there were one it would be big enough to be a world power, like Eolith. Several hundred people is a small enough size that you start to run into Dunbar's number, where it becomes eminently possibly that a group of 4-5 people could know literally everyone in the city. That's not a "city", that's a "small hamlet"- it is literally smaller than my elementary school. This is important because the psychology and sociology of a small town is totally different than that of a city- there's no anonymity, very little crime, extremely small economy, certain jobs wouldn't logically appear (I'm looking at you sage), etc. A "city" would have to have a population well into the thousands at least, if not tens of thousands, to be considered one, and there are absolutely places on Mote where we have experienced the "city" mentality (like every city we went to in Brigandage).

Originally Posted By: Sarachim The "cities" we've seen so far were mostly in the range of several hundred to several thousand. If Eolith had a hundred thousand people, that would make it two or three orders of magnitude larger than the typical city on Mote. Ehh, I'd say some of the larger ones would be pushing a 100k at least, so Eolith would be no more than one order of magnitude larger. The towns in Bloodmarsh and the ever popular AIMhack jungle village are definitely not cities.

What's the approximate population of these cites? For that matter, what's the population of Mote? A million? Ten million? A hundred million? Even without magic, we've had cites at medieval levels of technology with over a million in population, so I'm sure at least one or two would be that large...

Originally Posted By: Tomas What is the best blade in this game? I am stuck with oozing sword i think (blade with dripping green ooze:)) A (regular) Puresteel Blade with either a Golden Crystal or a Acid Damage enchantment. The Golden Crystal gives you additional physical damage, which very few things can resist, but the Runed Amethyst gives you a larger bonus of Acid Damage, which some endgame creature can resist/are immune to. You can find a Puresteel Blade by going to the Guardian in Dera South Shore and giving him two Puresteel Rings to make one. I believe you can also just kill him if you're a Rebel and he'll drop one, too.

Originally Posted By: Mistb0rn Superfluous, I think you mean. Or extraneous. Possibly redundant. Or all three, come to think of it. I've been sent by the DORA department to take you into custody. Please don't try and resist arrest.

Originally Posted By: Tyranicus Originally Posted By: Dantius This is true for plants, too. Gingko Biloba has pretty much stopped evolving for the past hundred million years (it has no predators, no bugs, no diseases, lives for a couple thousand years, can survive nuclear detonations, and is pretty much perfect in every way possible) Perfect except for the terrible smell of its berries anyway. Only female trees smell- the males are fine. Of course, you can't tell until about 20-30 years after you've planted it, but still.

Originally Posted By: Provincial Louts Sometimes it is considered the same species. Several species of shark are very, very old. Horseshoe crabs are similar enough to very ancient members of that family that the species divisions aren't always uncontested. If creatures really don't change, and some don't, why can't they be ancient species? —Alorael, who is pretty sure that Iguanodon didn't actually have lower limbs at all. They were the first known case of wing in ground locomotion. This is true for plants, too. Gingko Biloba has pretty much stopped evolving for the past hundred million years (it has no predators, no bugs, no diseases, lives for a couple thousand years, can survive nuclear detonations, and is pretty much perfect in every way possible), and we have fossils that are clearly very, very closely related going back much further. I see no reason that they wouldn't be the considered the same species going back at least millions of years.

Originally Posted By: Dintiradan Iguanadon was cooler back when it had its thumb-spike on its nose. I liked dinosaurs better when they were underground. Preferably whist being subjected to immense pressure and heat until they turn into the fossil fuels that is allowing our species to exert a greater impact on everything on the planet than millions of massive lizards ever could.

Huh. I didn't think this was suddenly an issue now. Has there been a surge of cases of people doing it by PM's or emails recently? I would at least think pirates were nominally intelligent enough to not request a pirated copy from a subsidiary of the company itself...

Samman (G5 secret boss) probably deserves a mention, seeing as he was kicked out of the Rebellion by the freaking Drakons for modifying himself to the point where even the massive lizards thought he was taking the whole thing too far. Then again, he might belong more in the crazy category than the evil. While not really a character, Click to reveal.. the Protoshapers of Sucia probably deserve at least an honorable mention. They got the power to manipulate life, and the used it to twist and deform their enemies to kill them off, and even managed to render a large segment of Sucia uninhabitable. The one person you meet who survives seems pretty bitter about it, at least. There's a pretty decent Mephistopheles-esque character in the drayk who offers you power, knowledge, and canisters in exchange for your "life force" (aka soul), so from a certain moral perspective, he would be one of the most evil characters in the series. For "what if" scenarios, the one of Danette's lieutenants who sneaks back to the island because he's lured by the power of the Geneforge could have been pretty evil had he not been trapped in the lab and left there, instead of actually reaching and using the Geneforge. It rather annoyed me that Gottesch himself basically got ignored (I don't think he was even mentioned again, ever), especially when you consider that he demonstrates how even a powerful and influential Shaper would become a Barzite in a second if given the chance, especially before the stigma got in place. I think he got retconned away in order to increase the centralization of the Shapers and make the Loyalists a stronger movement. I'm sure there were other bad dudes, but the G1 ones seemed the most complex and nuanced ones in the series, and the others after them seemed more like just various recombined hybrids of the various good/bad traits and beliefs of the G1 characters.

Originally Posted By: Nikki. Originally Posted By: Pachycephalosaurus 22. Pachycephalosaurus [...]bighorn[...](up to 9 inches!)[...]all this extra bone[...]a solid blow[...]hard[...] Fixed your multiple typos. *claps* You, sir, have won an internet...

Originally Posted By: Erasmus Why is it 0k to shoot a warning shot into the air, wouldn't it be coming down at some point? It's usually a blank- a cartridge with powder but no bullet. The pressure and velocity of the air and sometimes the wad means that it can still do quite a bit of damage at very very close range (think holding it against somebody's head), but it poses no threat after a decent range.

I buy all my ammunition, because it's easie- I mean, more "efficient". I'm not lazy or unmotivated, or anything, but... Okay, yeah, I'm lazy and unmotivated.

I've always loved epic level gaming. I know that in many senses of the word, "epic" is simply a synonym for "bigger numbers", but you must it admit that hitting a arch-lich with a Meteor is way, way more satisfying than tossing a Force Bolt at a goblin, even if both only do 10% HP damage. And, of course, the feeling that the decisions made by your characters will affect not only this campaign and the epilogue, but also all campaigns run by all other DM's in the setting is certainly one that raises the stakes quite a bit, and things way more fun with higher stakes. I second Rowen's idea about a "coming together" campaign x years from now. It certainly does seem like there are definitely conflicting plot threads that will start to intersect in fascinating ways.

Looks fun, but I really should be getting back to my RP, so I won't submit a character. Also, I can't burn down a jungle if there isn't a jungle. HOW AM I EXPECTED TO DEAL WITH THIS.

I am pulling it from somewhere- I heard it off of WFMT some time ago. I suppose it must have been unreasonable for me to have believed information about classical music coming from a classical music radio station, though. I should have remembered the convention here and validated this vanishingly trivial piece of information from at least five different reputable, peer-revied sources, properly bibliographically sourced and cited, and cross-verified the information by at least three experts in the field before posting. I must be slipping, such lax behavior will not happen again.

Is everybody excited for the big game today? The one where, uh, the one team that's not the Chicago Bears plays the Packers? Because I am... totally excited. Yeah. Football. Rah. Okay, fine, I admit it. I get all my sports news from SportsDome and don't follow football at all. But I know that some people do like it, and might even want to discuss which of two nearly-evenly matched teams wins a game largely decided by random chance, so I wanted to give them a place to do so.

You do realize the Pachelbel's canon doesn't really exist as a piece, per se, but rather a string of notes that sound good together? D A D G B D G A, IIRC. What you're supposed to do is take those notes and then work through progressively complex harmonizations until you can't manage any further levels of complexity. It was a piece designed for practice, like Hanon, not to be performed. And then of course Ordinary People had to go use it as their soundtrack, but I guess that that fault can be excused since it's such a good film anyways.

Originally Posted By: FnordCola My cute what? your |---> you're |---> you are. Thank you, I'll be here until the heat death of the universe.